I need to do an overhaul of my recipe binder. It's busting at the seams.

I like to have my recipes printed single-sided on loose-leaf pages or clippings pasted on pages so that I can easily take them out of a binder and stick them onto my magnet board when they're in use. However, I have so many now that I need to do some pruning and probably create an index of some kind.

Mine are in a binder and I have them organized with tabs by category, but I think adding an index would be a great idea. Originally I had it in alphabetical order within each tabbed section, but then it became difficult to find a recipe if I didn't know what word it started with and then I'd end up flipping pages anyway.

But writing down an idex on each of my tabs would be pretty easy to scan for what I'm looking for, and then just adding new ones to the end of the section would make it easy.

What I've done with cookbooks is gone through and written down on a piece of paper all the recipes I want to try first and foremost (usually from reviews on the PPK) and the page #. Then I put that page in the front of the book. I can usually remember which recipe I read about is in a particular book, but even if not, it does make it easier than searching through the whole index of a book.

i have an e-mail address specifically for recipes, and i access them from my ipod touch. (also helpful for subscribing to blogs, FYI. i have a thread around here somewhere dedicated to that topic.)

i put the recipe name and source in the title, although i should probably start putting the source in the very beginning of the body as well, because that'd make it easier to find something, since the ipod only shows you a certain amount of characters, and if the title is long, you won't know the author unless you open the mail.

i still have my old binder and index file around, but it's such a pain to keep it in order, since i'm lazy. with the ipod, i never actually take it out of it's place to use it.

I have a binder with tabs for appetizers, entrees, etc, and I try to keep everything in sheet protectors. But right now its a mess with tons of new recipes jammed in the front. Need a bigger binder and more protectors.

I have a number of printed pages, a few that permanently live on the fridge, others that are stuffed into various drawers in my desk, as well as a number of recipes saved on allrecipes.com and a bookmarks folder on my browser that has food links saved. Don't use my system.

_________________Anyone for some German Shepherd Pie? - daisychainWell! Fruit is stupid! These onions taste nothing like fruit! - allularpunkDwarf-tossing for God: A Story of Hope - Invictus

Mine are in a binder and I have them organized with tabs by category, but I think adding an index would be a great idea. Originally I had it in alphabetical order within each tabbed section, but then it became difficult to find a recipe if I didn't know what word it started with and then I'd end up flipping pages anyway.

But writing down an idex on each of my tabs would be pretty easy to scan for what I'm looking for, and then just adding new ones to the end of the section would make it easy.

What I've done with cookbooks is gone through and written down on a piece of paper all the recipes I want to try first and foremost (usually from reviews on the PPK) and the page #. Then I put that page in the front of the book. I can usually remember which recipe I read about is in a particular book, but even if not, it does make it easier than searching through the whole index of a book.

this is exactly what i do! we are organizing twins ;)

i also will nerdily add, that once i make a recipe for the first time, i pencil in a smiley or frown face (thankfully the frown faces are rare!) and put the date. i also jot down if i made any changes and/or what i will try different for next time.

_________________"....but I finally found block tempeh a few weeks ago with the intent to give it my virginity." -Moon

I have a number of printed pages, a few that permanently live on the fridge, others that are stuffed into various drawers in my desk, as well as a number of recipes saved on allrecipes.com and a bookmarks folder on my browser that has food links saved. Don't use my system.

LOL, but in a way your system is so awesome. you are so carefree and not anal about organization (no offense meant at all to jenlovesdoggies who i just dubbed my organizing twin!) that i can only imagine how laid back and chill you are in real life ;)

_________________"....but I finally found block tempeh a few weeks ago with the intent to give it my virginity." -Moon

I have a number of printed pages, a few that permanently live on the fridge, others that are stuffed into various drawers in my desk, as well as a number of recipes saved on allrecipes.com and a bookmarks folder on my browser that has food links saved. Don't use my system.

Haha! Recipes are to be collected! Not organized. I am so bad at writing recipes on a scrap of paper then adding it to the IPP. (Important Paper Pile.)

I keep most of my stuff as blog posts or drafts of blog posts (my blog currently has a 101 posts and 90 drafts, I try to keep the number of drafts lower than the number of posts). Recipes I find online often live for weeks as open tabs in my webbrowser. My cookbooks are studded with paper slips and post-its to mark which recipes I like or intend to make at some point.

I have a pile of books, a few magazines that are scattered around (but I don't really cook from magazines) and I use pinterest for the blog recipes I use usually. Unless it's PPK recipes in which case I just poke around the recipes section to find what I need. Lately I've been doing a lot of 'inspired by' cooking so it's never exactly a recipe I'm following.

_________________"Vegan to me means Oreos for breakfast." -Poopiebitch"tl;dr: I quit working to drink beer paid for with gift cards" erikasoyf*cker

Mine are in a binder and I have them organized with tabs by category, but I think adding an index would be a great idea. Originally I had it in alphabetical order within each tabbed section, but then it became difficult to find a recipe if I didn't know what word it started with and then I'd end up flipping pages anyway.

But writing down an idex on each of my tabs would be pretty easy to scan for what I'm looking for, and then just adding new ones to the end of the section would make it easy.

What I've done with cookbooks is gone through and written down on a piece of paper all the recipes I want to try first and foremost (usually from reviews on the PPK) and the page #. Then I put that page in the front of the book. I can usually remember which recipe I read about is in a particular book, but even if not, it does make it easier than searching through the whole index of a book.

this is exactly what i do! we are organizing twins ;)

i also will nerdily add, that once i make a recipe for the first time, i pencil in a smiley or frown face (thankfully the frown faces are rare!) and put the date. i also jot down if i made any changes and/or what i will try different for next time.

I like the smiley face rating system!

One of my major sources for recipes is the library, which means lots of clunky photocopied pages. I also copy recipes from the internet onto a Notepad program and convert them to plain text. The big issue for me with all these compulsively-selected recipes is that I haven't made many of them! I really need to make a massive index or spreadsheet, with recipes sorted by name, ingredient, feature (baked? fried? raw?), cooking time, etc. Going though & getting rid of recipes I haven't used or I know I never will helps, too.

I'm not ready to have my recipes digitized for tablet use, but that does seem like an efficient way to do it. I must admit that I am still a sucker for flipping though paper, though.

I have a composition notebook for mine. It's a work in progress, as I have printed recipes tucked in the back and lots of untested recipes. Also, a lot of them are online.

This is me, exactly. Which means I never really know where to find that recipe I just know I have. Is it written in the spiral notebook? On a random piece of paper tucked into the back of it? Did I bookmark a blog post? Copy it into a Word document? Imagine it?

Mine are in a binder and I have them organized with tabs by category, but I think adding an index would be a great idea. Originally I had it in alphabetical order within each tabbed section, but then it became difficult to find a recipe if I didn't know what word it started with and then I'd end up flipping pages anyway.

But writing down an idex on each of my tabs would be pretty easy to scan for what I'm looking for, and then just adding new ones to the end of the section would make it easy.

What I've done with cookbooks is gone through and written down on a piece of paper all the recipes I want to try first and foremost (usually from reviews on the PPK) and the page #. Then I put that page in the front of the book. I can usually remember which recipe I read about is in a particular book, but even if not, it does make it easier than searching through the whole index of a book.

this is exactly what i do! we are organizing twins ;)

i also will nerdily add, that once i make a recipe for the first time, i pencil in a smiley or frown face (thankfully the frown faces are rare!) and put the date. i also jot down if i made any changes and/or what i will try different for next time.

I like the smiley face rating system!

One of my major sources for recipes is the library, which means lots of clunky photocopied pages. I also copy recipes from the internet onto a Notepad program and convert them to plain text. The big issue for me with all these compulsively-selected recipes is that I haven't made many of them! I really need to make a massive index or spreadsheet, with recipes sorted by name, ingredient, feature (baked? fried? raw?), cooking time, etc. Going though & getting rid of recipes I haven't used or I know I never will helps, too.

I'm not ready to have my recipes digitized for tablet use, but that does seem like an efficient way to do it. I must admit that I am still a sucker for flipping though paper, though.

i'm in no way ready to digitize my recipes for tablet use either, esp since i don't even know what a tablet is. i just got a smart phone a year ago, i do like it a lot, but i'm still old school. i still play CDs on my boombox that has a tape deck i might add! and yes, i still have cassettes! i swoon for paper!

_________________"....but I finally found block tempeh a few weeks ago with the intent to give it my virginity." -Moon

Right now I have a big file folder with hanging files sorted into categories...but after reading this thread I can't believe I never thought of digitizing them and keeping them in my Dropbox to access on my phone. I'm going to make that my new project!

I do have a tablet, but don't want to use it in the kitchen because I'm terribly clumsy. I print recipes when I need them (or, sometimes, just read them and if necessary make a few trips to and from computer to make sure I use the correct amounts of ingredients).

- recipes from magazines - in a binder- printed recipes - in a drawer- one cookbook shelf; I, too, write in my cookbooks- recipes on the blogs - I use RSSOwl RSS reader, label recipes, so when I do clean-up, labelled posts don't get deleted. The problem is searching for ingredients: many bloggers don't make whole posts available in RSS, just a few sentences. - recipes on the web - a folder in my browser Bookmarks- one folder on the disk with a few recipes in plain text - One email folder for recipes I'm subscribed to (PCRM, other animal rights orgs)- Calibre for PDFs- Gourmet Recipe Manager for my recipes (I gave up importing recipes from blogs, websites etc.)- many of my recipes exist only in my CRON-o-Meter logs

So, when I precook the legume of the week, I have to search in many different places for recipes with that legume.